Tag Archives: Apple Final Cut Pro X

Ever since Apple released the iMac Pro, my inbox has been clogged with people asking advice on how to configure their system. This article is designed to help you make more informed decisions when you don’t have an unlimited budget. Also, while the iMac Pro is designed for many different markets, I’m focusing here on digital media.

If money is no object, buy the top of the line. It will be blindingly fast, it will work great and you’ll have enormous bragging rights. But… if money IS an object, then you need to make trade-offs, balancing the performance you need with the money you have. The good news is that you don’t need to buy the top-of-the-line to get a system today that can meet your editing needs for the next several years.

Some background
When Apple rebuilt Final Cut to create FCP X, they focused on upgrading its underlying architecture to take advantage of coming advances in hardware. This includes an all-64-bit architecture, optimization for core technologies including Metal, tight integration with both CPU and GPU and the ability to take advantage of faster I/O — both to the processors and storage.

There are no optimizations in Final Cut, Motion or Compressor that focus specifically on the iMac Pro. Instead, Apple’s media apps take advantage of whatever technology or performance benefits are provided in the hardware. In other words, there are no new features in FCP X that appear if it is running on an iMac Pro. What does appear is faster performance.

This is from the Apple website, comparing the iMac Pro to the fastest Quad core iMac:

“The iMac Pro takes Mac performance to a new level, even when compared to our fastest quad-core iMac.”

Photographers can work with enormous files and perform image processing up to 4.1 times faster.

Music producers can export massive multi-track projects up to 4.6 times faster and use up to 12.4 times as many real-time plug-ins.

Video editors can edit up to eight streams of 4K video, or edit 4.5K RED RAW video and 8K ProRes 4444 at full resolution in realtime without rendering. The iMac Pro can also export HEVC video three times faster.

Do You Really Need an iMac Pro?
Well, “need” is a relative term. If you principally work with SD or HD material, an iMac will be perfectly fine. The performance benefits of the iMac Pro don’t justify the expense. If you are hobbyist, no, you don’t need an iMac Pro. You might “want” one, but you don’t “need” one.

However, if the bulk of your work involves 4K or greater frame sizes, 360-degree VR, RAW files, or HDR, the performance benefits of this new system make it worth considering, because the design of the iMac Pro significantly speeds working with larger frame sizes, faster frame rates, more effects and more processor-intensive codecs (such as HEVC).

With that being said, let’s take a look at the specific components to see which ones make the most sense for video editing.

Display
The iMac Pro uses the same display technology as the 5K iMac. So everything you see on a current iMac looks the same on the iMac Pro:

– 5K display
– One billion colors
– P3 wide color gamut
– 500 nits

But, while the display of the iMac Pro is the same as an iMac, the display capability of the iMac Pro is greater:
– It can drive two other 5K displays or up to four other 4K displays.
– It has enhanced external connectivity and more Thunderbolt 3 ports (so you still have Thunderbolt ports left over for other accessories after connecting a display).

CPU
Before the shouting starts, let me say again that if money is no object, buy the top-of-the-line iMac Pro. However, for most of the editing that most of us are doing, we don’t need to buy the top-of-the-line system to get significantly improved editing performance.

The 8-core system is fine for most editing and compression. For example, H.264 compression takes advantage of a hardware encoder that is built into all current Macs. This hardware encoder is independent of CPU cores. However, there are benefits to more cores, especially when decoding and encoding heavily threaded codecs like ProRes or HEVC. Also, the 10-core system offers a higher Turbo Boost speed of 4.5GHz versus 4.2GHz for the 8-core CPU. This additional speed benefits rendering and exporting.

The 14- and 18-core systems are designed for applications other than video editing. I would invest my money elsewhere in the system because video editors will see greater benefits in upgrading RAM and GPU when using Final Cut Pro on an iMac Pro.

An exception to staying within a 10-core system is that editors using Red Raw media or working with multiple streams of ProRes — for example, multicam work — will see improved performance with higher-core systems.

I recommend 8 cores for general editing and 10 cores for multicam editing and RAW video workflows.

Performance vs. Heat
One of the issues I’ve heard about the current Mac Pro is that it has a problem with heat under heavy load. What I discovered is that, even more than the Mac Pro, the iMac Pro internals are designed specifically to dissipate heat under heavy load.

Outside, the iMac Pro is millimeter for millimeter the same size and shape as a standard 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display; outside of the space gray color and a few extra vents on the back. But, on the inside, it’s radically different.

One of the key things Apple was able to do is make the system all flash-based; 3GB/s of fast SSD is pretty darn fast! Switching to all flash allowed Apple to remove the 3.5” hard drive and use that large space for a dual blower design and a massive heatsink and heat pipe architecture.

This delivers 75% more airflow and 80% more thermal capacity, enabling far more CPU and GPU power in the box over a traditional iMac. It is also worth noting that it does all this while still being super quiet (it is an iMac, after all), letting you focus on your work.

GPUs
In general, cutting video tends to use more of the CPU while effects and graphics tend to rely more heavily on the GPU. Increasingly, both FCP X and Premiere rely on the GPU for more and more tasks. Also, the greater the VRAM, the better the GPU performance. Whether you use Motion, After Effects, Premiere or Final Cut, investing in the best GPU will be a wise choice.

While VRAM is important, it is not the only determinant of a superior graphics card. For example, the Vega 64 is significantly faster in addition to the larger amount of VRAM. Also, more VRAM offers benefits when working with large frame sizes, multiple video streams (i.e. multicam), multiple displays and complex motion graphics.

RAM
The 32GB default RAM is fine for virtually all editing. If, on the other hand, you run multiple applications at once — say FCP X, Motion, Compressor, Photoshop and a web browser — 64GB of RAM is better.

While there is value in more RAM beyond 6GB, you won’t get enough bang for your buck to justify the additional cost.

Storage
The iMac Pro ships with a 1TB SSD. I haven’t measured it, but it is probably way past blindingly fast. (Apple says 3GB/second!) The problem is that most media projects today far exceed 1TB in storage. You will need an external high-speed, Thunderbolt 3 RAID system for even medium-sized projects.

Video Compression
Unlike video editing, video compression has its own requirements for system resources. While this is worth its own article here are some thoughts.

Both H.264 and HEVC are relatively highly compressed formats. This compression, of course, leads to smaller file sizes, but the resulting compression requires more processing power. With H.264 and HEVC, decoding and most encoding actions are processed via dedicated H.264 hardware within the system.

A select set of custom H.264 encodes in Compressor may use the H.264 software encoder, which is threaded across multiple cores. So while ProRes encoding benefits from faster, higher-core CPUs, H.264 and HEVC are not similarly CPU bound. Also, it’s important to note that video compression often includes other operations including retiming, scaling, and color conversion — all of which use the GPU.

If you are interested in HDR, 8-bit HEVC does, in fact, support HDR. Still, 10-bit encoding is recommended for the highest quality HDR output when using the HEVC codec. The reason this is important is that current Macs only support hardware acceleration of 8-bit HEVC. This makes the iMac Pro about 3x faster in HEVC encoding than an iMac.

For 10-bit encoding, the HEVC software codec is threaded and can therefore take advantage of multiple CPU cores when encoding; more cores means faster video encoding.

Wait, What About the Mac Pro?
First, Apple has announced and reiterated that they are working on a new, modular Mac Pro. However, they haven’t announced specs nor a release date.

The current Mac Pro is getting long in the tooth. In terms of performance, the iMac Pro is a better choice.

That being said, there are still two reasons to consider the existing Mac Pro:
– You can add any monitor you want
– Many of the components inside are upgradeable

For me, while these benefits are not trivial, the hardware inside the system has not be upgraded in several years. If you are focused on video editing, the existing Mac Pro is not the best current choice.

Summary
Here are my two recommendations for an iMac Pro for video editing: A budget version and a top-of-the-line version for editors. (The mouse and keyboard come standard, so I make no recommendations about either of these.)

In Los Angeles on a Saturday morning, a crew of 10 students from Hollywood High School — helmed by 17-year-old director Celine Gimpirea — were transforming a corner of the Calgary Cemetery into a movie set. In The Box, a boy slips inside a cardboard box and finds himself transported to other realms. On this well-manicured lawn, among rows of flat, black granite grave markers, are rows of flat, black camera cases holding Red cameras, DIT stations, iPads and MacBook Pros.

Gimpirea’s is one of three teams of filmmakers involved in a month-long filmmaking workshop connecting creative pros with emerging talent. The teams worked with tools from Apple, including the MacBook Pro, iMac and Final Cut Pro X, as well as the Red Raven camera for shooting. LA-based independent filmmaking collective We Make Movies provided post supervision. They used a workflow very similar to that of the feature film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which was shot on Red and edited in FCP X.

In the documentary La Buena Muerteproduced by instructors from the Mobile Film Classroom, a non-profit that provides digital media workshops to youth in under-resourced communities, the filmmakers examine mortality and family bonds surrounding the Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday honoring lost loved ones. And in The Dancer, director Krista Amigone channels her background in theater to tell a personal story about a dancer confronting the afterlife.

Krista Amigone

During a two-week post period, teams received feedback from a rotating cast of surprise guests and mentors from across the industry, each a professional working in the field of film and television production.

Among the first mentors to view The Dancer was Sean Baker, director of 2017’s critically acclaimed The Florida Project and the 2015 feature Tangerine, shot entirely on iPhone 5S. Baker, who edits his own films, surveyed clips from Amigone’s shoot. Each take had been marked with the Movie Slate app on an iPad, which automatically stores and logs the timecode data. Together, they discussed Amigone’s backstory as well. A stay-at-home mother of a three-year-old daughter, she is no stranger to maximizing time and resources. She not only served as writer and director, but also star and choreographer.

Meanwhile, the La Buena Muerte crew, headed by executive producer Manon Banta, were editing their piece. Reviewing the volume of interviews and B-roll, all captured by cinematographer Elle Schneider on the 4.5K Red Raven camera, initially felt like a daunting task. Fortunately, their metadata was automatically organized after being imported straight into Final Cut Pro X from Shot Notes X and Lumberjack, along with the secondary source audio via Sync-N-Link X, which spared days of hand syncing.

Perhaps the most constructive feedback about story structure came from TJ Martin, director of LA92 and Undefeated, the Oscar-winner for Best Documentary Feature in 2012, which director Jean Balest has used as teaching material in the Mobile Film Classroom. Midway through the cut, Martin was struck by a plot point he felt required precision placement up front: A daughter is introduced while presiding over a conceptual art altar alongside her mother, who reveals she’s coping with her own pending death after a stage four cancer diagnosis.

Reshoots were vital to The Box. The dream world Gimpirea created — she cites Christopher Nolan’s Inception as an influence — required some clarification. During a visit from Valerie Faris, the Oscar-nominated co-director of Little Miss Sunshine and Battle of the Sexes, Gimpirea listened intently as she offered advice for pickup shots. Faris urged Gimpirea to keep the story focused on the point of view of her young lead during his travels. “There’s a lot told in his body and seeing him from behind,” Faris said. “In some ways, I’m more with him when I’m traveling behind him and seeing what he’s seeing.”

Celine Gimpirea

Gimpirea’s collaborative nature was evident throughout post. She was helped out by Antonio Manriquez, a video production teacher at Hollywood High, as well as her crew. Kais Karram was the film’s assistant director, and twin brother Zane was cinematographer. The brothers’ athleticism was an asset on-set, particularly during a day-long shoot in Griffith Park where they executed numerous tracking shots behind the film’s fleet-footed star as he navigated a walkway they had cleared of park visitors.

The selection of music was crucial, particularly for Amigone. For her main theme, she wanted a sound reminiscent of John Coltrane’s “After The Rain” and Claude Debussy’s “Clair De Lune.” She chose an original nocturne by John Mickevich, a composer and fellow member of the collective We Make Movies, whose founder/CEO Sam Mestman is also the CEO of LumaForge, developer of the Jellyfish Mobile — a “portable cloud,” as he put it — which, along with two MacBook Pros, were storing and syncing Amigone’s footage on location. Mestman believes “post should live on set.” As proof, a half-day of work for the editing team was done before the dance studio shoot had even wrapped.

During his mentor visit, Aaron Kaufman, director and longtime producing partner of filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, encouraged the teams to not be precious about losing shots in service of story. The documentary team certainly heeded this advice, as did Gimpirea, who cut a whole scene from Calvary Cemetery from her film.

As the project was winding down, Gimpirea reflected on her experience. “Knowing all the possibilities that I have in post now, it allows me to look completely differently at production and pre-production, and to pick out, more precisely, what I want,” she said.

Over the last few days I’ve had the chance to play with the new iMac Pro from Apple. I’m a professional editor at Trim Editing in London, where I cut high-end commercials, music videos and films. I was really excited to see how this new machine, and the upcoming version of Final Cut Pro X (10.4) NLE, could benefit us here and what sorts of things it might be able to achieve.

The Design
This thing looks like an iMac, no doubt about it. It’s the same all-in-one form factor we’ve become accustomed to, but in space grey. I love this design, and I’m a sucker for anything that nears a matte black finish. It’s pretty incredible to have a machine this powerful essentially living inside a display, and it looks great in the edit suite, especially as it comes paired with a space grey keyboard, mouse and trackpad.

Space grey aside, the only external tweaks are around the back — there are four USB 3 ports, four Thunderbolt 3 ports, a 10GB Ethernet port and large “Vader-like” vents to help cool the eager internals. While those Thunderbolt ports can support two additional 5K displays, what I’m most excited about here is the 10GB Ethernet port. We can now directly attach our LumaForge Jellyfish shared storage without the need for Thunderbolt conversion.

One last point, because I know I’d be asking this question. Can you buy the keyboard, mouse and trackpad separately? Sadly, apparently you cannot. But if you can somehow justify spending $4,999 on a space grey keyboard, mouse and trackpad, at least you’ll get a free iMac Pro!

The Performance
As I said, I’ve only had my hands on the machine for a couple of days, so I haven’t had the chance to run a full-blown editing job through it yet. But it’s abundantly clear to me that this thing is a beast. It’s by far the fastest Mac I’ve ever used, and according to Apple the most powerful they’ve ever built.

Thermal cooling

The machine I had access to featured a 10-core 3GHz processor, 128GB memory, 2TB SSD and Radeon Pro Vega 64 graphics with 16GB memory. The internal SSD is ridiculously fast. When I tested the speed I got 3021MB/s write and 2465MB/s read. And for anyone who knows what it means (not me) the GeekBench 4 score on the processors was 37003.

But let’s forget the paper specs for a moment. Here are a few real-world editing tests I ran:

A feature film has been cutting here at Trim over the past few months, so I took the opportunity to hijack the project to see what the export speeds were like. A ProRes HD file took 2 minutes 34 seconds, which is pretty great for a 90-minute timeline. But compressed H.264s are far more common for me as an editor when dealing with upload and review of my cuts. My biggest frustration with all previous Mac Pro machines was that their H.264 export speeds always seemed terrible. This is due to the fact that “workstation-class chips” don’t have the hardware-acceleration necessary for these tasks. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that Apple seem to be bypassing these limitations somehow, and the iMac Pro is also delivering fast H.264 exports. I have no idea what they are doing behind the scenes to achieve this, but it works and will save me hours in encoding time.

Next I decided to push the resolution right up and see how it might handle a ludicrous 8K timeline with footage shot on the Panavision Millennium DXL. With 8K ProRes 4:4:4:4 files, the iMac Pro played the sequence back perfectly. Even after adding a couple of color corrections and a blur to the clips it still didn’t drop a frame. I should add that this was playing back at better quality and without rendering. I’ll repeat that once more. 8K. Color correction. Blur. No Rendering. No “1/4 quality” BS. No frames dropped.

Yes, 8K is an impressive number, but I was also interested to see how it might handle a less friendly codec like R3D, a notoriously heavy codec for computers to decode/debayer and playback at full quality. The maximum I managed to test here was 5K Red RAW footage in a 5K timeline. Again, best quality and unrendered. Adding color correction, resizes and titles didn’t cause the machine to drop frames. The sequence played through smoothly, which is nuts.

Trim Editing

While this last test is really impressive, there aren’t many real-world jobs where I’ll be storing an entire film shoot of Red RAW rushes on my internal SSD. So I also checked how this played out on external storage. I’m happy to report that loading the same media onto our Jellyfish shared storage and accessing it over direct-attached 10Gb Ethernet gave me the same results.

These tests really blew me away. They aren’t necessarily going to be everyday scenarios for most people, or even me, but they make it possible to imagine editing workflows in which you’re working at close to the highest quality possible throughout the entire process… on a desktop computer. A space grey one. It’s going to be really interesting to see how the rest of the company reacts to this computer moving forward. While we mainly deal in offline workflows, we have begun to look at possibly taking on more conforming, online, grading work in-house. It’s not hard to conceive that the iMac Pro could be the tool to bring all these elements together for us in a streamlined way.

The Bottom Line
While I really haven’t had enough time to do a deep dive, it’s clearly the best Mac I’ve ever used — it’s stupidly powerful and great to work on.

Thomas Grove Carter

But who is it actually for? Clearly not everyone. It’s quite obviously a pro machine and it comes with a price tag to fit — $4,999. If you’re a pro user who needs a Pro Mac, it’s probably for you (and you can get your hands on one starting December 14). If you’re already an iMac user but you need more power, it’s probably for you too. If I had to make a wildly uninformed guess, I’d say this will be more than enough computer for 90% of pros.

There will still understandably be a number of places where this machine will not be enough, and I don’t mean it’s lacking in power — if you’re someone who needs rack-mountable, user-expandable hardware, this may not be for you.

For me, if an equally powerful Mac Pro existed, I’d still chose this iMac Pro over it, because I love the all-in-one compact design and the way it sits in my edit suite. I can’t wait to use the iMac Pro for genuine work and really put it through its paces. I’m excited and slightly dizzied by its power, and the potential that power has for delivering amazing work.

Also, did I mention that it’s space grey…

Thomas Grove Carter is an editor at Trim Editing in London, where they cut commercials, music videos and films. Follow him on Twitter @thomasgcarter.